Timeline
The Sources in Order of Their Earliest Evidence
Each entry and text is placed by the oldest surviving evidence that it existed, not by the age a tradition claims for itself. The date is approximate; the statement under each item says exactly what the evidence is.
c. 2400 BCE · Entry
Mesopotamian Cosmogony: The Enūma eliš and the Sumerian–Akkadian Creation Traditions
Sumerian passages on primeval heaven and earth on the Barton Cylinder from Nippur, dated to about 2400 BCE from its script (the date is contested); the Enūma eliš survives in copies from about the ninth century BCE onward. (earliest manuscript)
c. 900 BCE · Primary text
Enūma eliš: The Seven Tablets of Creation, translated by L. W. King (1902)
The oldest datable copies are Neo-Assyrian manuscripts from Assur of about the ninth century BCE; most copies are first-millennium, many from Ashurbanipal's library at Nineveh (seventh century BCE). The date of composition is debated (see the entry Mesopotamian Cosmogony). (earliest manuscript)
A text can be much older than its earliest copy: where scholars place a composition earlier on other grounds, the entry says so in its “Sources and dating” section. Only verified entries and texts appear here. Back to the Library.